Stepped in it WORSE than Rick Perry

I have two girls, both involved in athletics, and the younger one was getting all the attention this fall with softball, so I looked for a late season softball camp for the older one. Found one at George Mason University. Veteran's Day Weekend, a day and a half of drills and assessments, and three full on games (10 on 10). So I plunked down my $250 and sold my Notre Dame football tickets, and RSVP'd NO to my piano class potluck/recital, and even rented a hotel room in Fairfax, Virginia, which is about 30 miles from my house. When we showed up, it was clear that this was not what I thought I was signing up for. This was serious hardcore softball talent. My little girl had spent a year on JV, she MIGHT make Varsity next year on a very low level high school team. What I thought was a fall softball camp was actually a fall player exhibition for college scholarships. I knew i had screwed up as soon as I parked, because the kids were huge, and there were a couple warming up throwing the ball with grunts, and almost as fast as I can throw, and certainly harder than I would throw in a warmup. Ann Marie went through the Friday evening drills, but she cried when she got in the car. These people are way better than her, and she shouldn't even be here. I said don't be ridiculous, although it may be a college showcase, and you aren't ready to show, you might do something that sticks in their mind, and maybe in a year or two, when you come back, they will remember that. I thought I had her there. But Saturday morning, it was a disaster, she didn't want to go, and there were serious tears, but I forced her to go to the session. I told her if she didn't want to play in the games, she wouldn't have to. I figured once it was game time, you would want to play, no matter what. Man, did I step in it, as Rick Perry would say. She refused to play. She said she didn't like playing softball if she wasn't good, and this made her think she wasn't good. I totally stepped in it.

TucsonTragedy

18 people shot. A Federal judge dead. A Congresswoman gravely wounded with a bullet through her head. A terrible tragedy went down today outside a Tucson, Arizona Safeway store.

In all, 6 are dead from the attack at a constituent event for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Included among the dead are Chief Justice of the U.S. District Court for Arizona John Roll.

Congresswoman Giffords and Justice Roll have been memorialized all day as this senseless tragedy unfolds. And the blogs are rampant about motives and, on the left, tea party influence, since the Congresswoman has been harassed in the past.

I am a left wing nutjob, but I don't want to dwell on political motives behind this senseless act. While it might be possible that 22 year old suspect Jared Lee Loughner was influenced by the right wing and tea party cries that democrats were trying to destroy the country with socialism and amnesty for illegals, I think that might have only influenced his target. This kid was paranoid and crazy, and this was going down some day, some where, unless someone intervened in his life and got him the help he needed. Nobody did. He was lucid enough to notice the Congresswoman's event, and so he guaranteed maximum impact by his choice of venues. This is not a political event, and I am gratified and moved by not only Speaker Boehner's words, but by his directing a hold on explosive house votes next week. I think the new Speaker understands a lot more than i have previously given him credit for.

But what I want to talk about is a currently nameless victim. She is a little girl, 9 years old. At the Safeway.

As they talk about the dead, the famous will be mourned, and the judge and staffers and dignitaries will be honored. But for me, the most tragic is the girl. Not to minimize the deaths of others, but her loss is by far the greatest in this senseless slaughter.

My youngest child is a 9 year old girl. Not everyone has a 9 year old girl, so let me tell you about mine. She is feisty, she has a 14 year old sister who she is very competitive with. She thinks she's better at sports and games than her, so when she loses in either, she tries harder.

She is principled. She loves animals, and is borderline PETA crazy on her activism. She will not eat meat, she is a vegetarian. Even though i tease her all the time that she is the only vegetarian in the world that hates most vegetables.

She is gifted. She played fall softball this year in a division with kids one and two years older than her. And she was the best player on the team.

She is smart. She is inquisitive, she wants to know about history, current events, why daddy why. She asks hard questions, and she doesn't accept evasive answers.

She is funny. Her competitive nature and rivalry with her sister has caused her to develop a sarcastic streak that will sometimes end the back and forth between them with ridiculous laughter.

She is as cute as a button. She has received gifts at professional sporting events from coaches on the field because they noticed her from the field, and she made them smile, baseballs from batting practice, a hat from a New York Giants coach.

But she is also sensitive and vulnerable. She is only 9. She needs to know that she is special despite how great her sister is. Because she has an older sister, she acts out for attention. She creates fights with her sister that she cannot win, and measures chores and discipline against what her sister gets, and unsuccessfully tries to apply her analysis about fairness to what is being required.

But she is an absolute joy. And makes me smile every day.

And if I took her to the Safeway, and I lost her for no good reason, I didn't just lose a nameless 9 year old kid. I lost all of the above. And the randomness of it would never allow me peace, because I would always question allowing her to take an extra minute to pet the dog, or refusing to let her have breakfast. And I would never find peace for the rest of my life.

I hope the Congresswoman survives. I grieve for the families of the dead. But I am sick to my stomach for the parents of that 9 year old girl. They will never recover from that loss. I know I never would. I don't pray hardly ever, but tonight, I pray for them.

Hot Rod Watch

Three years after the divorce, I am still getting boxes of stuff that are "mine". I sort through them, and some are cool, like pictures and yearbooks, and some are dumb, like a 3 foot beer yard.

The last batch included a Matchbox Car Hot Wheels Watch. I was scratching my head, trying to figure out who the hell I had bought that for. My sisters kids weren't old enough for watches (as it had to be 3 years old at least), so I was completely baffled.

Tonight, we were putting some of the old photos into picture collage frames to line my stairwell, and I wasn't paying attention, but Kimberly (my 9 year old) grabbed the watch and opened it up and started messing with it.

"What are you doing?" I yelled. "That's not for you!"

"No duh, Dad." She said. "I bought it for you a long time ago as a Christmas present."

Whoops. Vaguely remember getting that gift, and giggling it at the time at the silliness and cuteness of it. But was floored that she remembered a gift she gave me five years ago when she was 4. And without skipping a beat, she set the time and date for me tonight, and put it on my wrist, as she would have tried to do 5 years ago.

I played it off like I knew all along it was my present. I feel a little crappy, but I tell you what, if you see me on the street, and ask me what time it is, you can bet your ass that the Matchbox HotWheels watch will be the source of my information.

I will wear this watch until she tells me to stop.

Teenage Wasteland

I have never been a parent of a teenager before, and it is often hard to realize that your little girl has become one. Since I am divorced, I don't witness every day stuff, just every third day, and I am the athletic director, so that's what I see. Sure, I am in tune on the grades, and the straight A's my 14 year old got in her first semester at the intimidating Science and Technology Magnet High School, but I am better suited to letting you know that she made JV Volleyball and closed out a game with 7 straight service winners to help her team to victory. Or that she laced a line drive to right field to drive in the only runs of a bad softball loss. And that she had a brilliant throw from center field that had the chick dead to rights at third, but the third baseman bungled the throw. Or that she has a hitch in her swing that's making her strike out, or that she's fielding the ball to the side at shortstop instead of getting in front of it, and needs to cut that out.

The emotional stuff, the teenage girl stuff, I never intended to do any of that. That's what mothers are for, the female stuff.

But I found myself in a situation where my little girl was crying for no apparent reason, and would not talk to me. This had gone on for hours at her mom's house on a Sunday afternoon, and I was only there to drop off some things she had forgotten at my place, and needed for the week ahead.

My first instinct was to "dad it up". You know the deal "what are you crying about, you want to hear something to cry about, listen to what i had to deal with as a kid", or "what the hell is this crybaby stuff, I'll give you something to cry about!"

But then i suddenly had a re-wind, to a week previous, where both of my kids in a social/game situation said that I was a hard rock to fall on rather than a soft pillow. And then I looked at my brilliant kid, with so much going for her, intellect, beauty, athleticism, and wit, crying for no reason, and unable to talk to me about it. So then I got scared. And I reacted.

Whether it was appropriate or not, time will tell. But I will never be burdened by the question "did I miss the signs?". I told her that she was the most important person in my life, and her mom's life. And, yes, Mom will sometimes be a pain in the ass, and Dad will sometimes be a pain in the ass, but we are only pains in the ass because you are the jewel of our existence. Your health and happiness is our number one concern. And I know of a beautiful young girl, happy, funny, talented, smart and loving who killed herself at the age of 15. Because she was sad about a boy. She was 15.

I don't know why I went there, perhaps the facebook tragedy was fresh in my mind, combined with my kids perspective that I am cold, but I went against my grain and got a tad aggressive with the discussion.

I gave her perspective. I want to see you play varsity sports. I want to visit you in college. I want to walk you down the aisle at your wedding. I want to make your kids do all kinds of things that will piss you and your husband off as a ridiculous grandpa. This is the perspective of life. Don't ever lose perspective over a stupid English assignment, or dumb ass boy, or turncoat bitchy best friend. Because that poor girl didn't just end her own life, she destroyed an entire family.

Not wanting to spend more than necessary on suicide, I quickly moved to the mantra that the most fun years of your life start with your senior year of high school, and last through college. But there are tons of yucks at every decade.

That is the big picture of a life well lived. An 80 to 90 to even a hundred year life. You are 14. Keep it all in perspective.

And she looked at me confused, but understanding at the same time. And seemed to be begging for some perspective for the perspective. And it fucking hit me, and forced me to abandon a quit job I was about to do.

I have been recently diagnosed with Meniere's disease, which is a chronic, untreatable condition that causes tinnitus, vertigo and periodic hearing loss. I have been taking piano lessons for about a year, and it's a robust program requiring significant practice. With the tinnitus, I can't stand to play, so I struggle to practice. My lessons are on Monday, and I was totally going to temporarily suspend my lessons because I have had tinnitus for two weeks, and it's annoying to practice, and I was going to quit for the month of December at least because it is too hard right now.

And I think I gave a brilliant superhero speech. Oh, crap, I forgot her deal. She wanted to quit school and hated everyone and everything because it all seemed so pointless. OK, now for my superhero speech.

"I was going to quit piano tomorrow. Why? Because my ears are screwed up and there's no cure, and it's just too hard to deal with when the ringing is very loud. But the big picture is that I really want to be able to play the piano well. And if i take a big picture view of things, sure, I will have weeks where it's a nightmare to practice, because every ping of the ivory will irritate some tinnitus, but there will be 90% of my days where that isn't the case. And the big picture, whole life view is I want to play the piano beautifully. That's 10-15 years away. So I will continue to work. Never forget that 10-15 years away will take work, but will be awesome."

Then I shot some silly string at her, and farted on her pillow. And then I left. Two hours later, I got a text message from her that said "I love you Daddy", and I have never been prouder as a man.

Teleprompter and polarization

...So the Dems have succeeded in passing the "fuck with us more" big government programs package veiled as a stimulus package... My approval rating suddenly drops from 100 to 90... I thought it was a crock of shit and obviously the people who drive the ecomony thought so too as my 401k continues to sink to a 201k... "these things take time" the Kool-aid drunk Obamians say but come on people how bout a little stock market up-tick just based on hope? yet nothing... Us Libertarians think the mess would take care of itself left in the hands of the free market - it is good for the auto industry to re-invent itself by actually making a car people might buy - My wifes grandma waited 3 months and paid full price to get a Prius... and the banks that gave loans to people who could not afford them need to feel the pain that accompanies poors business decisions - yes the government (both Dem and Repub) encouraged it but did they have to write the business? No! ...and now they are bailing them out? My approval rating was going to be an 85 but I happen to love the fact that Obammer relies too heavily on a teleprompter - the republicans act like this is a bad thing yet lord knows GW should have use one more often. Since we all know it is all about image and bullshit, at least Obammer places the utmost value on it. So let's get him up to a 90 for that.
I was chatting with my buddy that pointed out that the best economic years in our life-time were the Clinton years with a Republican Congress and the Reagan years with a Democratic congress. He claimed that balance was the key... I contend that grid-lock is the key - if neither parties' policies are in play because they cancel each other out, then the American people drive the economy - So our best years are always when they can fuck with us the least. We need to wake up and realize that the only thing either one is REALLY good at is polarizing a nation...and fucking with us...

Happy President's Day

Today is President's Day. If you recall, we used to have a National Holiday for George Washington's Birthday, and Abe Lincoln's Birthday, but these two holidays were merged into a President's Day to make room for Martin Luther King Day. Now we celebrate all the Presidents, Good, Bad and Ugly.

This year, CSPAN released a poll of historians that ranked all the Presidents based on "Leadership". Surprisingly, George W. Bush did not finish last. Abe Lincoln finished first, George Washington second.

In honor of President's Day, I give you a quick synopsis of the 6 Presidents that did such a shitty job, they rank lower than the Decider.

#36 - George W. Bush. The Decider. Loved the Google and the Internets. I assume you are familiar with his body of work, and are among the 70 percent of American's that think he royally fucked the country over.

#37 - Millard Fillmore. Fillmore served in the House of Representatives for 10 years (1833-1843) before launching an unsucesssful bid for Governor of New York in 1844. In 1848, Fillmore (New York state Comptroller at the time) was nominated by the Whig Party as Zachery Taylor's running mate. Taylor won, and Fillmore ascended to become our 13th President when Taylor croaked 15 months into his term. Fillmore proceeded to enact the Compromise of 1850, which Taylor had opposed. The compromise of 1850 was a series of laws designed to placate both sides of the raging slavery debate, and included the Fugitive Slave Act, which required Free States to return runaway slaves to their state of escape. Fillmore failed to win the nomination of his party in 1852.

#38 - Warren G. Harding. Harding was our 29th President, from 1921 until he croaked in office in 1923. Harding was a Senator from Ohio when he was nominated as the Republican candidate at the 1920 convention, and upon taking office, he appointed his pals from Ohio to major posts in his administration. And his pals were crooked. The biggest scandal was the Teapot Dome scandal, in which his Secretary of the Interior was taking bribes in exchange for federal oil leases (deja vu all over again?). Harding was also screwing around with two women, and the affairs were fairly public. Harding came down with a case of food poisoining while on a cross country trip (one in which he was the first US President to visit Alaska), and died in San Francisco, CA. Some historians suspect his wife was behind the poisoning, wishing to spare her husband the scandal that was unfolding around him, or for even more sinister reasons.

#39 - William Henry Harrison. Harrison was elected our 9th President in 1840, defeating the incumbant, Martin Van Buren, who was Andrew Jackson's hand-picked sucessor. The Whigs ran a modern, populist campaign to bring down Van Buren, painting him as an aristocrat, blaming him for economic woes, and playing up Harrison's folksy image. Inauguration Day was cold and wet, yet Harrison gave a two hour speech without a coat or hat. He came down with a cold, which turned into pneumonia, and he was dead in a month. Oh, yeah, he was 68 at the time of his speech. Dipshit. The fact that he's not last on the list is the only surprise here.

#40 - Franklin Pierce. 1852 was a complete fiasco in American Politics. The Democratic party was sharply divided between antislavery northerners and pro-slavery southerners. At the Democratic convention, 34 ballots had failed to yield a nominee. Franklin Pierce, a pro-slavery New Hampshire Congressman, was nominated on the 35th ballot, and the Democratic delegates finally said "fuck it" on the 43rd vote and chose him. As mentioned prior, Fillmore was fucked with the Whigs, because the compromise of 1850 didn't work out so well, but they had similar problems, and took 53 votes before they settled on Gen. Winfield Scott. Scott pissed off the south, and got blown out. Pierce had a lot of troubles before he entered the White House. He had already lost 2 of his 3 children, and two months before his inauguration, his last remaining child was killed in a train accident in front of him and his wife. His wife went kooky, and Pierce went aloof. However, his presidency was doomed by his signing the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, which overturned the ban on slavery in Northern US territories. This so enraged the North that the Whig party croaked, the Democratic Party was severely weakened, and the Republican Party was born.

#41 - Andrew Johnson. Lincoln ditched his Republican VP in favor of a Southern Unionist Democrat (Johnson) in the aftermath of the Civil War. After Wilkes did his deed at Ford's Theater, Johnson became President and was handed the untidy task of reconstruction. And boy did he fuck that up. At odds with Congress over how to administer the re-admission of Confederate states to the Union, he battled for years with the Congress. Showdown finally came when he fired the Secretary of War while Congress was in recess, Congress came back into session and re-instated the guy, and Johnson proceeded to fire him again. He was impeached by the House, but was spared conviction in the Senate by a single vote. Because Johnson had never named a vice president, if he were convicted, Senator Benjamin Wade, President pro-temp of the Senate, and a radical Republican, would have ascended to the Presidency. Wade as the alternative is the only reason Johnson wasn't convicted. Johnson's legacy is that of a blatant racist who did more to further strife in America than heal war wounds. His impeachment also severely weakened the role of the President and shifted the balance of power from the executive to the legislative branch for decades. Way worse than Bush.

#42 - James Buchanan. Note that with the exception of Harding, Presidents leading up to the Civil War and the one that fucked up reconstruction after Lincoln are the only ones worse than W. Just wanted to point that out one next to last time. Buchanan was elected our 15th President in 1856 as a Democrat over the first Republican nominee in history, John Fremont, who was against allowing slavery to expand westward. As President, Buchanan sought to retain southern Democrat support, and was sympathetic to southern concerns, and thus never took a hard stand on the slavery issue. He also clashed with Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois on how to handle the slavery issue in Kansas. The clash between Douglas and Buchanan fractured the Democratic Party, drew the country to the doorstep of war, and ensured the election of little known lawyer Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States.

Bottom line is Bush was a douche. A severe douche. A Historical douche.

Have a Happy President's Day. Your best in 8 years, I reckon.

Walkers

Do I walk too fast? I need to know. I expend way to much frustration and suppressed rage aimed at pedestrians than is healthy.

Yeah, I know it's petty and silly, but it is a quality of life issue. For whatever reason, I am at a different pace than the rest of the world, and quite frankly, I've had enough of it. So I'm calling you fuckers out.

The Large, Flailing, Meanderer: OK, you're the dude who is about 6 foot 5, 285, and your legs shoot out at 45 degree angles with every step. AND you don't go in a straight line, nor do you go at a consistant speed. It's impossible to pass you, and it's impossible to slow down enough to build up a gap so that your meandering bullshit doesn't piss me off. Because you are so big and unpredictable, turning on the jets and trying an inside or outside pass is dangerous stuff. Because you have no idea where your next step will take you. If you're a big doofus, you should walk meekly, for Christ's sake.

The Slow Wide Load: You are the person who is old or small or somehow feeble that is somehow carrying a giant package or purse or box or a giant ass that clogs the passing lanes, meaning that I have to stew behind you while you struggle. I'd offer to help, but within 10 seconds (and 3 aborted attempts to pass you) I hate your guts and hope you get to your office to find a voicemail that your puppy has died. Or has been murdered.

The Loud-Shoe Stalker: I hear you from a distance, because you wear tap shoes to work that click loudly with every step. You get louder rapidly, as you approach. But once on my ass, you never pass. I slow down, click click clickety fucking click. I speed up, and there you are, click freaking click, still on my ass. I slow down, and you remain on my ass, refusing to pass. I move to the right to give you a wide passing lane, and still, click, clickety fucking click. Are you attracted to 42 year old men with flat asses? Pass me, or change your shoes to some fast Pumas so I can't hear you while you stalk me.

The Oblivious Group: OK, you are the worst transgressors. Because you are normal walkers, that experience the walking frustration every day, but when you are with your friends, you decide that going three people wide, smoking and joking and playing grab ass is an OK thing to do. It's impossible to pass you, and it's impossible to break you out of your happy go lucky goofiness. You are the ones that experience the frustrations with all of the above, but together, with a few booze drinks in you, you forget the prime directive, keep the sidewalks passable. Shame on you. Shame on you.

Grocery Store Cloggers: These are the sons of bitches that turn their cart sideways in the aisle while they debate whether to get cheerios or apple jax, or chase after their kids who are messing up. They also are the ones that neatly place their cart to the right, creating space on the left, but then proceed to bend down to look at shit on the left, right next to their cart, so that their ass and cart take up the entire aisle. FUCK, the last item on my list are those goddamned Hefty bags that are three feet on the other side of your giant ass.

Come on people. Be courteous walkers. Be gentle walkers. Be subtle, quiet, unobtrusive walkers. Plan your walk, and be mindful of those behind you, or in front of you. Oh, and please, look behind you before you decide to scratch, pick, or bust your ass. I didn't need to see that.